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WGTK, Earth FM sold to EMF

passtheword

passtheword

My gut was right!

I had considered (and mentioned a couple times) quite strongly the 95.5 upgrade wasn’t to continue a format out of left field for Salem. It was to value add so Salem could sell the cluster. This lets EMF put K-LOVE on 94.5 and Air 1 on 95.5/103.3 to try to take down RTN’s empire on 89.3 and 103.9. I didn’t expect it to be so soon though. I’m surprised Salem is leaving the market completely though (not counting the translators)

iHeart will clean up with 102.5, as will Audacy with 98.9.
 
101tm said:
My gut was right!

I had considered (and mentioned a couple times) quite strongly the 95.5 upgrade wasn’t to continue a format out of left field for Salem. It was to value add so Salem could sell the cluster. This lets EMF put K-LOVE on 94.5 and Air 1 on 95.5/103.3 to try to take down RTN’s empire on 89.3 and 103.9. I didn’t expect it to be so soon though. I’m surprised Salem is leaving the market completely though (not counting the translators)

iHeart will clean up with 102.5, as will Audacy with 98.9.
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Fills in the gap with 106.7 Gainesville to the west. 88.3 Boiling Spring to the northeast, 89.7 Columbia to the south east and 102.3 Augusta from the south. His Radio is signal challenged a bit but 94.5 reaches towards asheville. I notice the His Radio Ratings in Asheville, Columbia and Charleston are not that good but the upstate 89.3 is pretty popular. I wonder if Salem had a 10 year agreement with Bobby Jones when they bought it that it would not compete with his Radio. I always thought RTN should have bought 94.5 especially when that had that old format. I hope they put a Klove 90s or 2000s on HD 2 since Air One will be on 95.5/103.3 and the fact HD 3 and HD 4 will still be run by Salem.
 
I doubt BJU would have put any kind of clause in for His Radio - by their strict standards, WLFJ was almost considered "secular" and they have long taught against CCM. I do believe when it was sold there was an agreement that the station would not play secular music (or be owned by a secular operator?). Supposedly the university had been trying to sell it for ages and only did when Salem offered to buy it, who I guess was acceptable enough considering their political views align closely enough with the University. I suspect HD radio wasn't factored in at the time considering what's currently on WGTK-HD2 and HD4. Odd that Salem is going to continue to lease those two subchannels. I wonder if they'll put their talk programming on there?

WSHP 103.9 hasn't done very much for His Radio. I know it doesn't have the best signal past I-26 or so, but Air 1 (EMF's equivalent to His Radio Praise) has done well in a lot of markets.

Wonder if Audacy will make a play for Sean Hannity who is really the only popular national host on WGTK. This will also mark the end of Mike Gallagher in the market who was on WORD both locally then on a syndicated level for decades before Salem took him from Entercom when WGTK launched.
 
RadioRonnie285 said:
His Radio is signal challenged a bit but 94.5 reaches towards asheville. I notice the His Radio Ratings in Asheville, Columbia and Charleston are not that good but the upstate 89.3 is pretty popular.
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Billy Graham's WMIT is in the Asheville area.

However, they have preaching in the evening so CCM fans who want their music have to go somewhere else.
 
EMF isn’t really concerned about competition. They want to get their message out to as many ears as possible to maximize donations, so WMIT is likely not a factor. They’re more worried about potential listeners to hear the message and donate.

This isn’t really a huge loss like it’s been in a lot of other markets where EMF has made transactions. I’d rather hear music on 94.5 than what’s on there now. The adult hits programming on 95.5/103.3 always felt like a placeholder to me and I’m really not shocked at that at all but unfortunate for all of the laid off personalities that got opportunities there. Salem essentially made this transaction to survive. Their financial situation is bad. I wonder when the LMA’s start?
 
OK, so I don't listen to much terrestrial radio anymore. I just As for K-Love, geez... how many stations does EMF think they need? What is it now, 400??
 
101tm said:
The adult hits programming on 95.5/103.3 always felt like a placeholder to me and I’m really not shocked at that at all but unfortunate for all of the laid off personalities that got opportunities there.
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i always wondered how they have maintained a full airstaff for so many years while other stations were being gutted.
 
freqdev said:
i always wondered how they have maintained a full airstaff for so many years while other stations were being gutted.
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I mentioned it several times on here and was told desperate air talent doesn’t make much money. If that’s true, we wouldn’t see continual layoffs virtually everywhere else. They even have an overnight voice tracker.
 
101tm said:
I mentioned it several times on here and was told desperate air talent doesn’t make much money. If that’s true, we wouldn’t see continual layoffs virtually everywhere else. They even have an overnight voice tracker.
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possibly, but even less pay with any benefits would still be a lot more than some stations with only one, two, or three on the air staff
 
Research is showing me Salem paid $6M for 94.5 back in 2012. They paid $500k for 95.9’s CP in 2015 and $1.125 mil for 103.3 in 2014. So they’re taking around a $1mil+ loss. I’m not sure how the 95.5 signal would be valued now vs the 2015 CP. It’s a much better built out facility now but asset prices have declined significantly
 
Audacy didn't have to upgrade WORD if they knew this was coming. They will be the only game in town for talk. Meanwhile, they absolutely decimated Magic.

I feel bad for all the folks at Earth-FM. No one is going to hire them. There aren't any stations left in the market that would even consider doing what they do.
 
I feel bad for the air staff also. They were all pros and just victims of cost cutting over the years unless some resigned on their own I’m unaware of. Mostly from WMYI as AC and WSPA-FM actually. except for Heidi Aiken who came from WFBC. Not sure where the morning guy on 94.5 came from. And yes, the sad reality is no one will hire them at least in the market. Oddly Sheri Taylor on Magic came from Earth FM.

Audacy might have still wanted WORD on a blowtorch due to the ad revenue opportunity from the stronger signal, but blowing up WSPA-FM at 98.9 like they did was a horrible, horrible blunder. Audacy will probably brag they put 94.5 off the air but the reality is Salem sacrificed it to pay a loan that’s past due as it’s probably one of their most valuable assets and they’re staring at the possibility of bankruptcy.
 
Great 😢
Well it was fun while it lasted,
maybe it can come around again somehow
💔 🌍FM

Perhaps reincarnate Earth 105.7 Spartanburg where it actually started. Or maybe the Block 963/1045/1077 can change course. Maybe 104.9/98.3 Fox Sports could finally try something else.

I'm sure the local talent will find a new home, or something else will fill it's void.

Would love to save some recordings of the station too, its actually been a well-loved favorite. Like my favorite in this area. What a shame.
 
Personally, I didn't like Earth FM. Yacking jocks, music all over the place. I found it loud and in your face. (I like my streaming and SiriusXM channels with no jocks.) But....

I praise them for what they were doing. Real local people on the air. Plugged into the community. Playing music that was all over the place to appeal to many people. I saw the station visible at local events. In my heart I believe with a bigger signal, the station could have been a major force in the upstate.

No one left in this market is going to take that chance. Most stations run jockless or have talent pumped in from other markets. (If I hear a brake on an Audacy station that doesn't mention the app, I'm in shock!)

Who's left here that's not running religious type programming? Audacy, iHeart and Summit. That's a big NO to them attempting something like Earth. Another sad day for radio. 😭
 
The thing I couldn’t get past with the Earth FM concept over the past couple of years was the hard rocking 80s music and 90s alt presented like a 1990s oldies station. The music was completely disjointed from the presentation. Maybe Salem didn’t give them any kind of budget, but then again they kept hiring air staff. I agree it was too chatty and they have gotten where they were playing very little music in the afternoon. It’s just so strange to me that Salem, of all companies, was behind this. This seemed like some kind of local level operation…maybe I’m wrong but it sounded like they were able to do and play whatever they damn well wanted on the air. Salem has a few secular music stations in Hawaii but this is very much a one off for them.

Audacy and iHeart have no reason to change to accommodate 95.5 / 103.3 going away. 102.5 is already doing well for iheart as is 101.1 for Audacy, where most of the listeners will go. Maybe Awesome 99.5 shouldn’t have been killed off though…
 
101tm said:
My gut was right!

I had considered (and mentioned a couple times) quite strongly the 95.5 upgrade wasn’t to continue a format out of left field for Salem. It was to value add so Salem could sell the cluster. This lets EMF put K-LOVE on 94.5 and Air 1 on 95.5/103.3 to try to take down RTN’s empire on 89.3 and 103.9. I didn’t expect it to be so soon though. I’m surprised Salem is leaving the market completely though (not counting the translators)

iHeart will clean up with 102.5, as will Audacy with 98.9.
Click to expand...
WGTK was a misfit for Salem from day 1 perhaps because in reality Salem's purchase of 94.5 was a way to give financial help to Bob Jones University which was attended by the late Stu Epperson, founder of Salem, who attended BJU and as I recall was on their board of directors. BJU was in desperate financial shape then and the Jones family lost leadership of the college during this time period.

Someone posted BJU was paid $6 million but if you read the contract half that amount was trade for time on Salem's network of stations mostly in markets larger than Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson. The studio site has a very lucrative tower lease to several cellular carriers which went to Salem so they got a great deal on a 100kw FM on a new tower up on Paris Mountain. His Radio already had the religious teaching programs on 660 and a translator plus a similar format to Salem's popular FISH format. The beach front conservative talk shows were on iHeart stations so WGTK and the addition of WLTE and WRTH was a misfit for Salem's typical setup. I doubt they ever topped $1 million in annual revenue. Now Salem is in serious financial trouble and Greenville is probably one of the few markets were they actually had some equity they needed to liquidate. They've been selling off tower real estate now for some time just as iHeart has been. The furniture is being burned to keep the fire alive.

EMF and His Radio used to avoid direct competition but they both expanded and that's no longer the case although Greenville is the last sizeable market where EMF wasn't an operator. When COVID hit all the major religious operators assumed they would hit rough times with revenue but instead it held and even grew then they got a lot of PPP money from the government so it was a double win. Both EMF and His Radio (Radio Training Network) have managed their finances conservatively so both are now able to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by financial perils of the publicly held companies. Any radio station or newspaper owned by a company which has debt, large, medium or even the smallest markets, has an expiration date.
 
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